TheHeretic - it's not just this thread in particular.

CJ - they need to work on the power consumption of the device or provide a higher capacity battery.

Yes it might mean a 1mm thicker battery, and therefore a slightly thicker phone.

If it meant it could run for significantly longer then the product would be improved.

I don't have a problem with battery on my HTC phone and frankly it does everything an iPhone can do just as well.

I have an iPod Touch and an iPad - I think they are excellent bits of kit. Both incidently have very good battery life.

The iPhone is a premium product, and for whatever reason people are prepared to pay a hefty premium over that of other Smartphone.

I just think the performance should match up to the price and the position it holds in the market.

No, you missed the point. I am not discussing battery life on a phone by phone basis. I am comparing the batteries used in phones 110 years ago vs the battery technology that is available now, but not used in phones.

Occasional "glitches" (usually by 3rd party apps and poor battery life aren't "Apple product" specific at all. Most android handsets have the same "problems". The only thing that can be appointed to the iPhone (4 & 4s) is their fragility.

Bought my father this last month:



For about £ 200, can do more than your Nokia 7210, is virtually indestructible and lasts almost two weeks (real world-tested!) on a battery charge.
You bought the wrong phone.
So in answer to your title question: no, not all phones are getting worse, some have just got another focus and are clearly not built for you.

The first and only Apple product I've bought is the ipad2. This was because it's the first internet browsing device that has a good enough battery life where it isn't an issue. It will do a full day of intensive usage or will last about a week with our usage patterns.

I'm still waiting for a phone that can do something similar. Best I've found is a HTC wildfire S with an extra large battery to make the phone 50% thicker. Lasts about 3 days.

The market says different. If they "needed" to do this, sales would be poor. They're not, so they don't. I'm always amused by how people on internet forums continuously second-guess the patently bang-on-the-money multi-billion-dollar decisions (which is what the battery capacity of a phone is, once you take into account design, supply chain and production costs) of the most successful technology company in the world ever. "If only they did Thing X, which completely by coincidence is a specific thing I want, and which they've clearly not thought of at all, they'd make loads more money!"

But other things - most notably size and weight, although heat may also be an issue - would be compromised, and Apple (and Samsung, and HTC, lest I be accused of being a [cliche]fanboy[/cliche]) have done their sums and observed that most people (note: most, not all) would rather have a thinner, lighter phone than a thicker, heavier one with more battery life.

Well, use that then.

The price of the iPhone is roughly on par with the premium handsets from HTC and Samsung.

HTC One X - £470-£499
Samsung Galaxy S III - £521-£599
iPhone 4S 16GB - £566-£586

(prices from the sim-free bit of moneysupermarket.com)

I get a similar level of functionality out of my smart phone as I did my old laptop 15 years ago (more in many respects). My Compaq laptop was massive, heavy and the battery lasted about an hour (and it would run at the same temperature of the shuttle's nose cone).

My phone at the time (a motorola brick of some sort) would last for about a week on a charge but had no functionality other than phone calls and text. If I had a choice I'd sooner carry around my Bold 9900 and a couple of spare batteries than a 15 year old laptop and brick that would barely fit in my pocket.

Phones haven't got worse they're much much better, which is why everyone has their phone out all the time doing pointless distracting stuff on them.

Has it? (Serious question btw) Every week we seem to hear of some University that has discovered a fast charging battery or a battery with the same energy per kg as petrol and how it can solve all the problems we have with battery life/power/range/charging in cars/phones/vibrators/laptops etc.

Followed by the article briefly mentioning it only works at absolute zero/1200degC/size of a house/powers a 1W LED/costs a million pounds etc.

^^ Turn it off & it'll last even longer.

Spot on.

For those people an app like Juice Defender (if on Android) will probably help as it disables the data connection when the phone is in standby, it will wake it up now and again to check for emails or whatever.

That said, I've got my SGS2 set up perfectly now. It was a matter of finding a decent ROM, Kernel (although the stock one works fine for me) and modem. A good modem will be able to hang on to a signal better and improve battery life.

Now mine is optimised, I'm thinking of getting the bigger battery for it.

Pity iphone users don't have these options open to them

Best phone I have for battery life is a Blackberry Bold on Vodafone. Problem is, it wont log into the wireless hotspot network I'm on, is too expensive to roam and no-one calls it. Turned it off on April 30th, turned on last week, still 75% battery left. Ace

I bought a jailbroken iphone 3GS to use on the US T-Mobile network and (after doing some tweaks) thats lasting for a good couple of days with bluetooth and wireless on and being used